


Do you even care?

by Flannigan



Category: Hanna Is Not A Boy's Name
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Codependency, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Physical Abuse, Swearing, they're both fucked up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-10
Updated: 2017-12-10
Packaged: 2019-02-12 19:56:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12967230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flannigan/pseuds/Flannigan
Summary: Casimiro's philosophy in un-life has no room for relationships with short-lived mortals. When Finas becomes too close to a human woman for his comfort, Casimiro decides to 'save' him.





	Do you even care?

Casimiro had a duty as Finas' companion in death: to watch his back the same way Finas watched his. It was the one damn responsibility Casimiro took seriously, and he intended to protect him from threats—even if Finas was too blind to see them.

"Please don't," the woman rasped past blueing lips, his hand squeezing her throat tight.

He chewed on his lower lip and appreciated the contrast of fresh blood on flush skin, trailing down her face from her forehead. She was plain, and boring, and fickle. Though in her eyes he saw it. Brown eyes so vibrant and amber he yearned for the sun. Maybe she was beautiful when she smiled?

"If only you could understand what you'd done, you'd commit suicide," he whispered and smeared blood along her jaw with his thumb. Her eyes watered and spilled.

"Please-"

Casimiro threw her aganst the wall of her own living room, hands a tightening chokehold.

"What do you think you can do for him? You don't understand anything! You think you can soothe his troubles?" he hissed, forehead pressing against hers. He licked at her jaw to taste her blood, and she whimpered, hands pushing on his chest. He followed the line of red up her cheek, pulled back and licked his lips.

"You're one of the vampires-" she choked, eyes wide. She started to pry at his fingers around her throat in a panic.

"Heard about me, have you?" he loosened his grip to let her breathe, once.

"Finas! Do you know Finas? He'll come soon- He'll vouch for me, I know it."

"I know him," Casimiro nodded. He leaned close and kissed her forehead, smearing his lips with her blood. She panted for breath, hands holding his wrists, and he let the moment last, giving her a glimmer of hope. "You don't mean much to him. You're just human," he murmured, breathing in the scent of iron and honey. He began properly strangling her.

"No, pl- I don't want to die," her voice shrank into nothing.

"Humans die," he said and held firm under her strikes and final throes of desperation. He twisted her neck in an unkind angle and dropped her limp at his feet.

Casimiro took a step back and breathed deep, still as tense as when he came here. He wiped his trembling hands and mouth clean on the curtains.

Finas would understand.

Another deep breath, familiar enough with the stink of a corpse's evacuation to bare it for a while yet. He cracked open one of the windows.

Right. How to frame thi-

The front door opened and closed.

"Excuse me? Are you all right?" Finas' voice. Casimiro wrinkled his nose. He'd certainly notice the stink.

Casimiro paced to and fro in the small room, searching for his lighter to flick to keep his hands busy. The half a minute it took for Finas to enter the room passed. His back was turned when he entered.

"....Cas? I didn't expect to see you here." Finas' voice was like the reverb of a cello, he could listen to his voice for hours, except he only seemed to argue and nag lately. He heard fast shuffled movement behind him just as he decided he must've lost the lighter somewhere, and turned around.

Finas knelt next to the body, hands on her pulse, mouth moving without making noise.

"Hey," he said casually, cracking his knuckles behind his back and shifted his weight from one leg to the other.

"She's still warm. Did you see-" Finas looked up and cut himself off. He narrowed his eyes, piercing him with his gaze. "You did this." It wasn't a question.

"I did."

"You-" Finas looked between him and the corpse, then covered his mouth. A moment passed in silence, and Casimiro didn't dare crack another knuckle. Finas pulled the body up in his lap, brushing away hair from her face. "Explain youself. I know you know she was my friend."

Casimiro looked away from the affectionate gesture, swung on his heels. He had one chance. He put on a smile and stepped closer, hands spread in surprise.

"Oh, this was you friend? I'm so sorry, I didn't know. My mistake entirely."

"Casimiro!" Finas didn't even raise his voice much and yet he felt like a misbehaving child. "Why?" 

"What's the issue? She's human," he dropped down on the coffee table, knocking down a mug of highlighters. "Dime a dozen."

"You know how I value my friendships," Finas said through gritted teeth, and Casimiro met his eyes with an amused, raised brow. Finas beheld him dark and cold with an old fury. On thin fucking ice. "You had no right."

"You value their 'friendship' because you're lonely and pathetic, Fin. Let go of her already, you'll get piss on you."

No response, just that look. He ran his hands through his hair with a sigh, settling behind his neck.

"In case you forgot: she was human. _Mortal._ You and I are _immortal._ By the time you know them they're halfway dead! You can't run to whichever one opens their arms for you. It's not healthy. They die and you get all," he made vague gestures in the air, "you know. _You._ I'm not letting you do it again. This would happen sooner or later. Better sooner."

"No." Finas wiped away the blood and tears from her face with his sleeve. Her eyes were still open, staring with a glint of sunlight trapped in them. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"Don't I?" Casimiro spat bitterly. Hadn't he done this same song and dance centuries ago? "Immortality is isolation and solitude. It is a ruin. It means I have to keep you from that ruin because you're all I have." He held his breath and waited for the reply. He'd named Finas his everything, and that didn't earn him even a word? A glance? Anger sparked in the pit of his stomach.

"You know what your problem is?" he shot up from the table, crouched down on the other side of the corpse and grabbed Finas by the jaw, forced him to look at him. "You're spoiled. You want what you can't have and then throw a fit about it."

"What?" Finas pulled out of his grip, eyes narrowed again. He must make him see reason, understand the right way of seeing things. This was a kindness, for fuck's sake!

"You and I are immortal and we're going to suffer an immortal's life together. Not you and some fleeting human. They'll pretend they understand, give you sympathies and comfort, but do they really understand? No! You're looking for something from people who don't have it!" He finished with a growl and stood up.

"And I suppose you-"

"I heard you talking," he pointed a sharp finger at him, "You were going back to England with her. You planned on leaving me alone? You know it would destroy me if you left me alone like that."

"That was a private conversation."

"You, if anyone- Do you even care what it would do to me? I had no choice! You must understand that!"

Finas watched him, silent.

"You need me," Casimiro pressed on, tapped a hand on his chest. There were truths Finas needed to accept, and he was tired of waiting. "A human will leave you unsatisfied, they don't understand, but I do! So what the fuck are you doing? What the hell are you thinking?"

Finas put the corpse back on the floor, clasped her hands on her stomach and carefully drew her eyelids shut. Finas looked at him when he stood up, expression controlled and guarded. Casimiro stood still as he walked up to him and straightened his tie, adjusted the knot more proper, fussed with the collar of his shirt. Finas was good at weighing and choosing his words, though it took time sometimes. He tried to be patient.

"You never cease to surprise me, Cas," Finas finally spoke, calm and casual, watching his hands as fingers grazed his neck, "if the sun was up I would throw you out to fend in the shadows like the vermin you are."

Casimiro frowned at the constrast between the words and the mild tone with which they were said.

"Good thing the sun's not up then?"

Finas' hands around his neck yanked him to the left and his feet were kicked out under him. He tried to catch himself but misjudged the distance. His head slammed into the floor, white flashing dots swam in his vision. He glared at Finas looming over him through the lights, then felt his shoe kick into his side, sent him sliding over the carpet, stopping on his back.

"Fuck you!" he hissed breathlessly, tried to sit up. Finas raised his foot and stomped down on his chest, paralyzed his lungs and Casimiro curled against the strike, unable to make sound.

Finas knelt down, grabbed his arms and forced them down his sides. Then he sat over him, pinning his arms under his legs. Casimiro kicked and pushed against him, but he was simply too weak in comparison.

"Wait, wait!" he gasped as he saw a pulled back fist. He braced for it.

He loved Finas' body, impressed by his sheer brute strength and it was sexy as hell. But being the subject of his wrath was unbearable. It would pass, as everything did. It would pass, he told himself, still heels kicking the floor and turned his face the other was in a failed bid to dodge. His hands closed around fabric from Finas' trousers or coat, squeezing hard.

Teeth chipped and broke, trapped in his mouth and cut the inside. Blood sprayed from his lips with each strike. His ears rang, and he couldn't hear if he screamed or not.

He let go of his humanity, his left arm turned white and skeletal and he pulled it free from under Finas' knee. He lashed out, wanting the pain to end. His wrist was caught in a similar skeletal clawed hand. He opened his eye, saw half of Finas' face peering down at him, and half of something else with many sharp teeth.

His arm was slammed into the floor and Finas shifted his weight, and pummelled his chest like a battering ram, again and again. His ribcage snapped, _somehow_ , and each punch felt closer to his spine. He felt his humanity and weakness seep back into him, appearing human again, and closed his eyes tight, no choice but to take it.

And then it stopped. Finas stood up, leaving him at his feet. He opened his eye, and Finas was also appearing human. He looked down at him as guarded as before, fists dripping blood, panting.

He couldn't breathe in, his chest felt wrong and he didn't want to look and see. He spat out some shards of teeth, head lolling to the side. Saliva and blood pooled out the corner of his mouth, more blood pouring from his broken nose. Shit. He'd need to set that one straight soon to keep his profile. 

Anger rarely felt so fierce raged within him still, but Finas had never beaten him like this before, and he couldn't move without risking a broken rib coming loose and piercing his heart. 

"I trusted you," Finas said, voice thick, "she was my friend. You murdered my friend."

Casimiro could only blink angrily in reply, and watched him gather the corpse in his arms.

"Pray our paths might never cross again," Finas said, turned, and left.

****

*****

Casimiro stood in front of the mirror, allowing his mind to wander as he matched and contrasted shades of colour and textures. Didn't matter he could only see the clothes in the mirror, draped on a body with no reflection.  


As a rule he tried to not pay attention to time. It was too slow and too fast at once. Still he knew it was exactly three months since he'd heard from Finas. Past arguments had caused them to split up for a time, but the absence felt not temporary, but final. He tried to not think about it much. Maybe it _was_ final, and he'd never see Finas again?  


Startled by his own thought one of the hangers slipped through his fingers, and he stared at it for a long, quiet moment.  


Finas had to return. Finas needed him. His blind stubbornness was infuriating and only served to harm them both. Why did he refuse to understand?  


He blinked, woke up from his silence and eyed the mirror, ran his hands town his torso to work out creases and took a slow breath. Now that his lungs and ribcage had finally healed he appreciated being able to breathe if he chose to. He put on his jacket and left their—his?—flat to restlessly stalk the streets for expensive distractions from miserable thoughts. Waiting.  


The thrill of dice and cards was dulled, and it was entirely Finas' fault. A chance at a royal flush on his hands should make him excited, but it didn't, because there was an empty space at his side, and Casimiro had made it so. It was the anger at himself he felt each time he picked up a card that soured everything.  


He stopped going out, stopped going past the threshold. Got fired. He crawled into bed and stayed there, only driven away by boredom but nowhere to go, and used up all bloodthorn. One of his contacts arranged passage for him back to Europe, as per his request one high, difficult night. The final paperwork waited for his signature, as it had for weeks, left in the study.  


Finas didn't have friends (anymore), and he'd never go to a professional contact for a couch to crash on. His reputation would never recover and he concerned himselves with his. Unless he had another human friend hidden somewhere... Not that Casimiro worried about his whereabouts. He slept.  


****

*****

He rolled out of bed, pulled off clothes and dropped them in a trail to the shower. Turned the handles all the way up for scalding water. He paused and looked at his hands; they had started to tremble a few days ago and hadn't stopped since. Waiting for the water he bit off the growth of his nails with his teeth and spat them at the drain.  


It had been weeks since he'd been able to breathe comfortably. At first he thought he was still injured. It felt like a tightly clenched fist in his chest. He was terrified of... something. Nothing. Everything?  


Eternity laid before him, and he had to walk that path alone now?  


Time ceased beneath the showerhead, where he tried to relax his tense body, stiff as iron. The glassbox he stood in fogged up eventually, like paper. He drew three lines in the shape of a =) with his pinky, and glared at it.  


There had been a time before Finas when he'd been alone. Simply had to remember how to be that person again. Slowly, without him noticing, he'd been twisted around the damn Englishman's finger. Deformed into needing Finas to think right. Surely he could snap out of this state that swallowed him completely. If it was even possible to twist himself into his former self. Sometimes he doubted it.  


He turned his face to the stream, eyes closed. How could he had known Finas would overreact like this over a human? What did he lack that she possessed?  


The smiley smiled at him. _Your will became reality. The human is gone._

Their past was too vast for regrets. Future too vast to comprehend. There was only the present, and they couldn't afford to be attached to short-lived, lesser beings who would sink their fingers like hooks into their dead souls and pull them into the past. It made you forget the present, made you hurt to live in a world that hadn't existed for a century.  


He mustn't forget the never-ending present. Finas didn't understand this. Casimiro envied and resented him for that.  


He smushed away the smiley and dried himself off. He thought to enter the study, sit at his desk and sign the paperwork. He'd been distracted into the past long enough. But he walked back to bed out of habit. Fine. Sleep first, then Europe. At least _he'd_ be fine on his own, that much he knew.  


He blindly reached out, grasping one of Finas' blankets taking up space and pulled it over himself, sinking into the bed. The mattress creaked, the very room and floorboards creaked like it was as tired as he. He rolled over, brushing damp hair from his forehead. Finas stood in the doorway, pale and bloody as ever before.  


Casimiro froze mid-movemet, felt his gaze on him, the way the hair on his arms stood up, and he knew he wasn't imagining this. He slowly propped himself up on an elbow.  


"Hey," he said with a dusty voice, immediately regretted it and bit his tongue. Finas watched him with an intensity that made him want to hide.  


What party had he been to? Whatever cheap shirt he wore had a patchwork arrangement of dried blood of different shades down his front. Was he here for a change of clothes, or... Made up his mind and here to avenge the woman? He didn't think Finas had forgiven him—not that he'd done anything wrong—and had to consider it. Casimiro's gaze flickered to his knuckles, they were bruised. He met his staring eyes, wordlessly asking his intent.  


Then Finas moved, walked to the bed and put a knee on it. His unnerving, unblinking, dilated stare didn't leave him even as he crawled over him, standing on his knees over his thighs, reminiscent of before he'd pinned him down. Finas grasped the edge of the blanket and simply moved it aside, exposing him. He shifted awkwardly on the sheets as Finas' black eyes wandered over him.  


The silence was deafening, the springs in the mattress adjusting almost made him flinch. The flat of Finas' palm landed on his thigh. He was unusually warm, burning. He instinctively pulled in a shaky breath as the incredible warmth slowly caressed upwards. It followed Finas' gaze, the edge of his hip, sliding over his stomach, a hard press of both hands on his sides. They slid under his back, Finas leaned down and dropped his weight over him, his grimy clothes cold and sticky against his skin.  


Finas settled on his shoulder, beard scraping his chest before he sighed deeply and tightened his grip around his skin and bones like there was nothing else in the world to hold on to. He seemed to have fallen asleep.  


Casimiro very slowly threw a blanket over both of them, and put his hands over his spine. He turned his face against his dirty hair and waited.  


When Finas woke up and came down from whatever high he rode right now he'd leave again. Obviously. Casimiro dug his fingers into his back. Despite being crushed, he could breathe again. He felt... not fine, never fine, but better than ten minutes ago. Arguing with a damn smiley. He wouldn't mind another beating, if it meant he'd stay. He had to make him stay. Things simply made sense.  


The gall of him. How could he show up, say nothing, pass out on him and still make him feel better? God, Finas had twisted him beyond saving, hadn't he? He tightened the hold enough to be uncomfortable if he was any sort of conscious, not sure if it was despair or joy that burned his eyes.  


Several hours later Finas stirred. A low groan in his ear, a nuzzle into his neck, and a slow inhale. Then he tensed, and Casimiro with him. Finas rose up, pupils back to normal and a deepening, troubled expression on his face. Casimiro kept his arms around him, and shot up before Finas could speak, reversed their position in a fast, violent second, holding him down.  


If Finas wanted to he could toss him aside like a napkin, but he counted on him being disoriented. He cupped his face, thumbs stroking dirty cheeks. Finas looked confused at him, lips parted. He leaned down and kissed his forehead, whispering the words he thought would make Finas reconsider leaving.  


"I love you."  


Finas breathed in sharply, turned his head to the side. He backed up enough to look into his eyes. He meant it, but he didn't care for romance or declarations. He only said it for the sole purpose of snaring him close to his heart.  


"... I know you think it's love," Finas whispered into a pillow, voice more shapes than sound. Finas relaxed into the mattress and soft things, head on a ridiculously fluffy pillow and hands where they were supposed to be: on his waist. He inhaled Finas' air, recongizing a number of substances on his breath.  


Had he turned to _everything_ to cope without him? He chuckled low, pressed a grinning kiss to Finas' shapeless mouth. He had returned, because he needed him. Even if he had to be stoned out of his mind.  


"You love me," he said more teasing than intended. Finas dragged a hand up his naked side, grasping the back of his neck, fingertips digging into his hair just enough to feel good.  


"I'm afraid I do," Finas mumbled solemnly like it was a terrible confession, something he truly regretted.  


He frowned at that, but decided it didn't matter how Finas felt about it—only that he felt it. Together they could manage. Together they could outlast time itself. Just the two of them.  


He shared this revelation with Finas in a few hushed sentences, kisses scattered between words. Finas' mouth pressed into a firm line. He closed his eyes and deflated under him.  


"Then may it be so."

**Author's Note:**

> it-s-blue-ink.tumblr.com


End file.
